Essays

Toward a New Lexicon for American Wine

We need a shared language to describe not just where, but how a wine was made

Evaluating a young red wine is an exercise in prognostication: Is the wine worthy? Also: Is the exercise worthy?

Blending is about more than attaining equilibrium

Lessons from opening a singular bottle—too late

Snapshots from four decades of Napa Cabernet Sauvignon teach us something about taste, and tasting.

The Tarentaise recipe mixes tradition and innovation to create something wholly new.

Reflections on cooking an all-local Thanksgiving dinner

Pour a wine to honor its birthright. Pour it with food.

Wine is local, a lens of culture: this place, this vineyard, this grape, this grower, this heritage.

Old love needs a Bacchus wine, not a Cupid wine.

Pinot Noir is a tuning fork for terroir. Here’s one way to think about that.

This new series explores linkages of temperament and character, and suggests a new way of writing about wine.